It was eight years ago now that I heard Richard Culatta speak at EduCon. At the time, he was the director of the Office of Educational Technology at the US Department of Education. Now, he’s the CEO of the International … Continue reading Pencil Sharpeners
I carry my work life in my backpack. I try to make sure it has everything I need, everywhere I go. If I’m in a school or at a meeting or in a coffee shop, my backpack has all the … Continue reading Cleaning Out the Backpack
Last year, we spent a great deal of time crafting our portrait of a graduate. The trend in public education over the last several years has been to identify the characteristics that we would like our graduates to leave with. … Continue reading Living the Vision
For years, I used the same company to buy most of my technology supplies. If I needed printers or cables or memory or consumables, I would always go there. The company had pre-negotiated contracts with several different agencies and consortia, … Continue reading Friction
“I saw student choice. The kids were writing their own songs. It was definitely DOK-4.” We were debriefing an instructional rounds experience after observing a fourth grade music class. The teacher-observer was pretty insistent that this was engaged, student-directed learning … Continue reading The Starting Point
Why do we go to school? It’s an absurd question, really. If you ask students, they’re usually suprised by it. Everyone goes to school. There’s no real choice. We have to go to school. It’s what we do. And parents … Continue reading High School Knowledge
The South African concept of Ubuntu describes the symbiotic relationship between the individual and their community. I am a product of the environment in which I live. My perspectives and opinions and actions are shaped by the people around me. … Continue reading Reflecting on a Year
High schools are strange places. In our formative years, we spend so much time in them that they become intertwined with our youth. It’s the setting for most of the the social, academic, physical, and cognative development that happens in … Continue reading Cultural Heritage
Technology is disposable. One of the challenges of managing technology in schools is the fact that you have to keep buying the same thing over and over again. Every time I put a computer into service, or a flat panel … Continue reading Life Cycle
I taught “Computers 8.” I think that’s what it actually said on the students’ schedules. The precision in the course name betrayed the hand-waving that was happening behind the scenes. “We know this techy computer stuff is important, and we … Continue reading Teach Less
We want our students to be problem solvers. We want them to use their critical thinking and innovation skills to combine knowledge across disparate domains to find creative solutions to complex problems. We want them to be collaborative and articulate … Continue reading Common Language
I started this blog experiment 15 years ago. I was looking for a way for my teachers to quickly and easily share information with students. They wanted web sites. We didn’t have a good way of doing web sites. WordPress … Continue reading Reflecting on Reflecting
Taste of Tech 